“Love is higher than opinion. If people love one another, the most varied opinions can be reconciled….This is one of the most important tasks for humankind for today and in the future: that we learn to live together and understand one another. If this human fellowship is not achieved, then all talk of esoteric development is empty.”

At the Gates of Spiritual Science, Lecture 11, Rudolf Steiner

* 1 Corinthians 13

We think of ourselves as independent human beings. We live our own lives, we think our own thoughts. Unlike the plants which root in the earth or the branches attached to the vine we are not physically attached to anything. We move freely. We can go wherever we please.

In our independence it is at times easy to miss that, just as the plants are connected to everything around them; the branches to the vine or the trunk, the whole plant to the soil, the rain, the sun and the care that we give to it – so are we.

Through the food that we eat, the air that we breathe, the sun that is vital to our lives, through the people we love and whose lives we share, we are connected to everything and everything is connected to us. We are not just single human beings, we are part of a great picture. We are interconnected.

This is true also for our spiritual life. Just as the sun stands in the centre of the interconnectedness of all earthly things, giving life, warmth and form, so the spiritual sun – Christ – stands at the centre of our souls. He is the great Uniter, the vine from which we spring, the flowing life that gives us strength, purpose, growth and renewal.

“May thus my own set walls relax their tension
So that your Being may in mine reside,
And my own Being enter your dimension –
That Being, thus, with Being may unite.”

~Christian Morgenstern~

This contemplation by Rev. Contreras is inspired by John 15 – “I Am the True Vine”

Nobody wants to be a sheep; because sheep are followers. They don’t have their own mind, so we say. To be a sheep is to conform to social norms – to blindly believe in authority – to rely on the comfort of a crutch. These are the very things that make us want to run from religion. Because these are the things that hinder our developing humanity, hinder our developing sense of self.

And yet, our gospel today tells us something different. For Christ uses the symbol of the sheep, not to degrade the human being, but to name that part of our hearts that can tell the difference between the voice of the true shepherd and the voice of a fraud. And unlike goats who are eternal slaves to their own whims, sheep follow the call of the true voice. The human being as sheep means that we become able to hear, discern and know the voice of Christ in us. For His voice is sounding in every human ‘I’, every human heart.
But all too often, we would silence our hearts, ignore the call. All too often we would become goats and distract ourselves by following the voice of our own whims and fantasies, follow where our small selves want to go rather than where He is leading. Or worst of all, we believe the voice of the one in us who concludes that there is no truth speaking in our hearts, that there isn’t even a call to hear.

But nevertheless, the True One speaking in us, calling each one of us by name, He is the Good Shepherd. And He walks in the Spirit before us, leading to the pasture of life giving love.

Dear friends, may we enliven our inner sheep, not by blindly following, but by learning to hear, discern and know the sound of His voice in us.
The contemplation by Rev. Evans is inspired by The Good Shepherd and the true meaning of being sheep.

Our hearts are meant to gather all of creation into the life of Christ. For recognizing Him is the source of true joy. And experiencing Him manifested in the world is the task of the Christian initiate.

“A Christian is one who, wherever he looks, finds Christ and rejoices in Him. An this joy transforms all his human plans and programs, decisions and actions, making all his mission the sacrament of the world’s return to Him who is the life of the world.” Alexander Schmemann

” The initiate of ancient times, when in the spiritual world, saw how evolution points the way to the as yet hidden Christ. The Christian initiate, however, experiences the unseen effects of the Christ manifested on earth.” Rudolf Steiner

As any parent knows, holding your newborn child for the first time brings profound joy. And every parent also knows, deep down, that you have done nothing to create such beauty; you feel blessed to receive such a heavenly gift. And the only authentic response to a true gift is gratitude.

And yet every birth must come through suffering, every newborn is the result of deep pain. For profound gratitude for new life is not mere pleasure in getting what we want, profound gratitude comes because the suffering itself was fruitful, the pain of the cross prepared the joy of new life.

Thomas, in our gospel this week (John 20) knew of this profound gratitude for not only did he rejoice in the reality of the Risen One, but by feeling His wounds as proof, he rejoiced in the true meaning of suffering, that it too is a gift, that that the true mission of suffering is always labor. And this is why tears of joy are so truly human. For tears of joy express a gratitude for both new life and the blessing of pregnant pain.

What if the foundation of our life wasn’t the balance on our bank account, or the place where we live or the job that we do – what if the foundation of our life was this kind of profound gratitude? What if everything that we have, everything we receive, like the newborn, is a gift? What if all our pain and suffering is meant to be there because each one of us is actually pregnant with a deeper self? What if tears of joy flowed daily from our eyes? How would we speak? How would we walk? How would we live?

For at the Easter altar, the centerpiece of our spiritual life, we hear proclaimed that each human heart is actually meant to beat with gratitude – to breath joy – to pulse with grace.

This is because resurrection, new life, even for Christ, is always received from the Father. And learning to receive the gift in every moment is what it means to become a human being.

Therefore, dear friends, let us practice this receiving. Let us receive the gift of communion as newborn life and surrender our hearts in gratitude to God.

This contemplation by Rev. Evans is inspired by the Apostle Thomas rejoicing in the Risen One and by the birth of Isla Charis.

Our altar is a well, a well of living water. For why would any of us come to the altar if not to receive something, something living that nourishes our souls? But of course if anyone has ever peered into a well, first there is darkness. First we feel an abyss. And in order to reach the life giving water in the well, we must first enter the deep, dark black. Passiontide calls us to enter this blackness. Passiontide calls us to seek the living water in the darkness.

Within each human heart there is also a place that is deep and dark. This is that part of our hearts where things are unknown, wounded, and where we are alone. It is that part of our hearts that when we enter, we fall to our knees. This is why we hear from the altar during these weeks before Easter ‘…my heart lies lamenting on the ground…’

And yet, anyone who descends into a well does so with trust, trust in what can be found. And this is the most important thing for our journey into the blackness; that we trust even when we can’t see, even when we can’t hear, even when we don’t know! That we trust that in the depths of our emptiness, in the center of our woundedness, there is His living water to be found. This is the path of the cross. This is the path of the Christ in you.

Courage to descend.
A willingness to feel our longing for the Spirit.
Trust, that the living water is in the darkness.

These are our tools for the well. Passiontide calls us to find Him there.

This contemplation by Rev. Evans was inspired by the passiontide liturgy and Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

This week’s gosepl speaks to us about sin, specifically the adultery committed by a woman (John 8) – and it speaks of two ways how this sin is regarded and dealt with by Jesus Christ. While the Scribes and Pharisees, who have brought the woman before Jesus, want to stone her, Jesus  sends them away: “Whoever among you is free of sin, let him throw the first stone.” And he does not  condemn the woman either: “Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.”

When we do something wrong, it is in our power as humans to make up for what we have done. If this is not possible in the moment or in the immediate future, the opportunity is given to us through karma. We can work on our mistakes and learn not to do them again. We can change. We can go and sin no more.

All things have – at least – two sides. There is never just one way to look at something. And while, on the one side, we see Christ’s acceptance and non-judgement in the face of our sins – his encouragement to us – on the other side we see him write in the earth, as the gospel tells us, twice. What does he write? What is being inscribed in the earth?

There are indeed two sides to our sins. There is the personal, subjective one that is within our power to handle, to deal with and to make up for. And there is the other side that makes us face that whatever we have done is an objective fact in the history of the world. A fact that cannot be undone – a deed that, once committed, cannot be made to be ‘un-happened’.

Every deed that we do, every fact we put out there into the world is like a seed. There are seeds of light and there are seeds of darkness. Every sin we commit plants a seed of darkness deep in the earth where it cannot be touched by human powers.

This is where we have to admit that sometimes our merely human powers are not enough. That there are things that we cannot fix, circumstances where we remain helpless and where the help of a higher power is necessary and crucial.

What human power cannot touch Christ can.

He can take our seeds of darkness and infuse them with cosmic forgiveness. He, who has the power to overcome death can turn darkness into life and light. And if we ask ourselves how we deserve this help and forgiveness we have to answer that we do not. It is a gift of love from the cosmos to us. We may ask – and how do we give thanks for a gift like that?

The words of the Act of Consecration give us the answer: “…in reverence of Christ, in mindfulness of Christ’s deed.”

This contemplation by Rev. Contreras was inspired by John 8.

Under our feet, a new earth has come. The white and cold and crunchy ground is melting. The warmth has revealed the new ground. For we now see that the white ground of winter is just a veil covering the true ground of the world.

Within each human heart there is also a true ground, an inner ground, the foundation of true life.

But like the snow-covered earth, this true ground in our hearts is so often veiled, covered up, even from ourselves. For beneath the frigid blanket of worry for our earthly security that so often covers our souls, human hearts have at our core a deep trust in the divine for all that we have; for all that will come. Beneath the cold loneliness that so often shrouds our everyday lives, the human heart is designed to walk in communion with ‘the beloved’ with every step that we take. Beneath the desperate anxiety of our discontent, always longing for something more, something that will make our lives finally acceptable, our hearts are actually made to stand on perpetual gratitude for what is, for what we actually have, for the ever-present closeness of Christ regardless of what comes.

Dear friends, a ‘Christian’ is not someone who follows the rules, not someone who is ‘good’ and so to receive the reward of heaven at the end. A ‘Christian’ is not someone who believes something that cannot be proven. A Christian is someone who practices again and again breaking through to the true ground of the world – one who learns to ‘stand’ on deep trust, real gratitude, in communion with Him.

And the Act of Consecration, our sacred ritual, is a way to practice this new kind of ‘standing’. For as we come into the presence of the alive altar, as we feel the peace of communion descend, when gratitude and joy envelop our hearts, then we know that the warmth and light of His sun begins to melt the frozen layers of our hearts. The new earth, the true ground breaks through.

This contemplation by Rev. Evans is inspired by John 6 and the melting snow.

“When an impure spirit leaves a man, whilst his inner being is still weak, then the spirit roams through waterless places, seeking rest and not finding it. Then he says: I will return to the dwelling which I have left. When he comes to this dwelling, he finds it cleansed and adorned. Then he goes and brings seven spirits who are even worse than himself; and they enter and dwell in that man. And in the end it is worse for the man than before.” (Luke 11)

In the natural world there is no such thing as a space devoid of air – a vacuum. There are no empty spaces at all. Everything is filled. When matter moves to a different place or state – maybe the core of a tree rotting away, the sea eroding the land or something as simple as us emptying a glass of water – something else is there instantly to replace it. A void space will fill with water, with air, with light, or with any other available substance.

If we want to experience a place that is empty, at times we have to look no further than our own souls. We can be devoid of spirit, of meaning and of purpose. We crave to have our souls filled. We can be like barren wastelands waiting for the water. When we become aware of the emptiness in us, we have to ask ourselves: What do we let inside? What will replace the emptiness? Do we let the outside world rush in, as it is prone to do, like air rushes into a broken vacuum or like a substance filling up a vacated space? Or do we choose carefully, as much as we are able to, what we expose ourselves to, what we let inside the dwelling that is our soul?

In the end the question is: Do we look toward the darkness or do we look toward the light? “The light of the body is your eye. And when your eye is clear and pure, the life of your whole body will be illumined; but if your eye is clouded, then the life of your body, too, will be full of darkness. Therefore take care that the light is not turned into darkness in you.” (Luke 11)

This contemplation by Rev. Contreras was inspired by Luke 11.

It is striking that in our gospel reading this week (Mt 4:1-11), we learn that the very first thing God has to do on earth is to make a commitment.

He resists the temptations of the adversary in the desert by saying ‘yes’ to the will of the Father- He resists by committing himself to the will of the divine. Christ had no weapon in the desert except his ability to say ‘yes’ to God. For Christ, commitment was His sword. Because of this commitment, the angels could come close.

Within each one of us there is also this sword of commitment- this power to say ‘yes’. And it is through this inner power to say ‘yes’ to our ideals, to what is highest, that the angels can come close. For as Goethe says ‘ the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.”

And yet, so much of our lives are spent coming up against temptations and difficulties; dealing with desperate challenges- perhaps even feeling despair and hopelessness. When we find ourselves in the inner desert, like Christ, we must remember, there is one thing we will always have, one thing that no one can take away from us; the sword of commitment- our ability to say ‘yes’ to God. For ultimately, it will be this ‘yes’ power in us that allows His realm, His being to come close, to descend into the earth.

In The Act of Consecration, our communion service, we practice this ‘yes’. Each time, we are invited to practice committing ourselves to the divine…. when we pour the water and wine into the chalice we are called to open a space in our hearts for the angels to draw near…His life in our life, His light in our daylight, happens because we say yes to Him.

This contemplation by Rev. Evans was inspired by Mt. 4:1-11, the temptation in the desert.